Brought home the Honey (Bees)!!!!

[Miketodd]

Well today we officially gave a home to our new bees. We bought a 5 frame nuc from Apple Blossom Honey Farms in Star City, IN. They are on 41 acres of beatiful land in northwest Indiana and doing great. We put them in today and they are adjusting nicely. Hoping for a full nectar and honey flow!

My wife and 4 year old waiting for me to locate the queen (thankfully she is marked so we were able to see her).


My 9 month old daughter wanting to get involved (she was sitting in the van with her uncle).

 

[chef1231]

I don't know anything about bees but that is awesome. I bet the kid loves it, I know mine would.

 

[chef1231]

Just out of curiosity how is the queen marked?

 

[dieselmudder]

we had a hive when i was younger. got honey regularly, and my grandfather in Oklahoma had several. he had small scale production equipment. im looking forward to having some of my own in the future.

 

[Miketodd]

You use an enamel paint pen and put a dot on her thorax.
How to mark a queen | Honey Bee Suite
This allows me to find her quickly instead of just looking for the "biggest" bee (sometimes drones and workers will get abnormally large). It also lets me see if another queen has hatched to avoid a swarm.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

There is some evidence that marking queens can lead to premature supercedure. Supercedure is a natural process in which the worker bees, after sensing that something is wrong with their queen, use one of the old queen's eggs to raise another queen basically behind the old queen's back.

The new queen hatches out and takes over the hive. Since the new queen could mate with drones from "wild" colonies, the new queen might produce offspring with different characteristics, but that's not always a bad thing.

 

[BrentC]

It also lets me see if another queen has hatched to avoid a swarm.

If another queen has hatched what do you do? Do you have to kill the new queen to prevent disturbance in the hive?

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

If another queen has hatched what do you do? Do you have to kill the new queen to prevent disturbance in the hive?

If you're in the swarm season, and your hive is ready to swarm, and you kill a new young queen, chances are that the old queen will still swarm out with most of your bees and honey, leaving you with a hive containing a few bees and no queen.

If I get in that situation, I will try to split the colony, making sure to get each queen in their own new hive. That sometimes works.

For anybody interested in Bees, this site is one of the best in my opinion:

http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm

 

[BrentC]

If you're in the swarm season, and your hive is ready to swarm, and you kill a new young queen, chances are that the old queen will still swarm out with most of your bees and honey, leaving you with a hive containing a few bees and no queen.

If I get in that situation, I will try to split the colony, making sure to get each queen in their own new hive. That sometimes works.

For anybody interested in Bees, this site is one of the best in my opinion:

The Practical Beekeeper, Beekeeping Naturally, Bush Bees, by Michael Bush

Interesting, I never knew it was such a somewhat complicated activity.

 

[TheWabbit]

MMMmmmm. Honey. I talked to the beekeepers during the Curiosity Fair at Connor Prairie a couple of weekends ago. I use their honey in my mead. It's clover but unless someone can figure out how to raise orange blossom in Indiana, that's all I have.

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

Love a rich clover honey.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

MMMmmmm. Honey. I talked to the beekeepers during the Curiosity Fair at Connor Prairie a couple of weekends ago. I use their honey in my mead. It's clover but unless someone can figure out how to raise orange blossom in Indiana, that's all I have.

Black Locust honey is one really good honey that is often overlooked, and I think better than clover honey.

 

[TheWabbit]

Where do you get Black Locust locally?

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Where do you get Black Locust locally?

Not sure, I've never bought it. You don't get it every year, since the Black Locust bloom comes too early some years before hives have enough workers to bring in the nectar. But when the timing is right, and the weather cooperates, I've gotten good yields. I suspect that most beekeepers in central Indiana get Locust honey, but since the locust bloom runs right into the clover bloom, they just pull it all out of the hives and mix it together and call it clover honey. I think Locust honey is lighter and milder than clover, but they are pretty close.

 

[Miketodd]

We have both out at our property but mostly clover. I just checked them today and they have filled out frames 2-9 with some comb on frams 1 and 10. I refilled the entrance feeder and added the second hive body with frames and foundation. After they fill out frames 2-9 in this one, the honey super will go on!

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

We have both out at our property but mostly clover. I just checked them today and they have filled out frames 2-9 with some comb on frams 1 and 10. I refilled the entrance feeder and added the second hive body with frames and foundation. After they fill out frames 2-9 in this one, the honey super will go on!

Sounds like you're on your way.